Ned Flanders wrote:Here's the short bus version: Obama encouraged the "Arab Spring" movement knowing full-well that it might lead to the takeover of some nations by Islamists. Well, it happened, including in Libya. Some of the fruits of this genius bit of foreign policy have been the sacking of our embassy and the murder of an ambassador as well as the murder of Americans at the Algerian gas plant.

Don't you think that the smartest man and woman in the history of the world could have figured out that diplomats in some of these new hot spots might need some extra security?

Democracy for all unless they don't vote the way we want them to.

Or turns out the way we had hoped when the oppressive government is toppled.

Apparently the senior Senator from Wisconsin didn't care enough to attend the meeting at which intelligence officers spent hours explaining what happened, with tapes and everything. Just didn't go to the meeting (neither did Sen. McCain) What say you of your RoJo now?

Ronnie is a talking Ken doll. There never was and never will be any substance or truth from that man. He's all "Made in China" plastic.

Ronnie didn't make the phone call that he insists would have been simple to make to find out about whether the Benghazi attackers were protestors or terrorists. He didn't attend the hearings or read the classified reports.

In a response sent to the Journal Sentinel, though, Johnson said the briefing in question was last year for members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he has just recently joined.

"I became a member of the Committee quite recently, and so was not invited to the briefing offered last year," Johnson said in a written statement. "I have participated in multiple classified briefings on Benghazi, and others that were unclassified. I attended briefings offered to all Senators, and to members of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs."

In a response sent to the Journal Sentinel, though, Johnson said the briefing in question was last year for members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he has just recently joined.

"I became a member of the Committee quite recently, and so was not invited to the briefing offered last year," Johnson said in a written statement. "I have participated in multiple classified briefings on Benghazi, and others that were unclassified. I attended briefings offered to all Senators, and to members of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs."

This may very well be a case where John Kerry played a clever but dishonest political stunt on Ron Johnson, asking him if he was at a meeting to which he was not invited, nor eligible for attendance. The insinuation of course is that Senator Johnson wasn't doing his job, but the reality is quite different, at least according to Senator Johnson.

Kerry: I think it was very clear… were you at the briefing with the tapes?

Johnson: No.

Kerry: Well, there was a briefing with tapes, which we all saw—those of us who went to it—uh, which made it crystal clear. We sat for several hours with our intel folks, who described to us precisely what we were seeing. We saw all of the events unfold. We had a very complete and detailed description.

If you look at Kerry's statement, he doesn't specifically accuse Johnson of reneging on his obligations, but of course the insinuation is there.

So, was Ron Johnson invited or eligible to attend the briefing or not? Inquiring minds want to know.

So how did RoJo know Kerry was referring explicitly to a Committee hearing that he wasn't invited to?

"Were you at the briefing with the tapes?" "No."

Not, "which briefing do you mean? Sure, I was at plenty of briefings with tapes, but not at the Foreign Relations Committee one because I wasn't a member." He didn't say that or give any qualifications, just, "no."

And we certainly know that McCain didn't attend that briefing -- he was busy holding a press conference to demand a briefing.

And can we all admit that the RW talking point about "real-time video" is a lie, and there was no such thing? Because there wasn't (except in Jennifer Rubin's fevered imagination, later megaphoned by the Foxites). Thanks.

Stu, I'm not trying to hang John Kerry on what is pretty ordinary political misdirection, but I think that accusing Ron Johnson, moron that he is, of failing to do his duties as a member of the "we hate Hillary Clinton" committee is a pretty serious accusation.

Was John Kerry insinuating that Ron Johnson was remiss in his duties? Was that insinuation accurate? Rojo claims he wasn't invited because he hadn't yet joined the committee. Is that accurate?